I spent the month of October trekking in Nepal with a couple of friends, Mark and Susan, and our guide and porter, Shyam and Shyam. We set out to complete the ‘Three Passes’ trek in the Everest region, a route which would take us over the Renjo La (5360m), Cho La (5368m) and the Kongma La (5535m) passes, with side trips to Gokyo Ri (5360m), Kala Pattar (5550m), Everest Base Camp (5364m) and Chukhung Ri (5550m). Due to poor weather (4 days of snow) we had to skip the Kongma La, but it wasn’t a huge disappointment.
The first leg of the trek took us from Lukla into the Nangpa La valley. We spent a couple of days at Namche Bazaar, which is a wonderful, colourful Sherpa village nestled in a large bowl on the side of a hill at 3500 metres above sea level. I started feeling the altitude quite early on - by the time we reached Thame (4000m) on the fourth day, I had a splitting headache, and felt sick at the thought of food. However, after starting on diamox, and taking an extra rest day at Thame, I was back to normal.
After an uncomfortable night sharing the same bed in a crowded lodge in Lumde, we set out to cross the Renjo La pass which would take us into the Gokyo Valley. Susan and I were not feeling the best; Susan had had a restless night with a fever, and I had been hit the previous day with a bout of diarrhea and vomiting, due to uncooked momos in Thame (remember that we’d had to share the same bed that night!). Not really what I would call ideal conditions for a 1000 metre climb. It ended taking us 5 hours to reach the pass; we were blown away by stunning views of Gokyo Lake, and rushed down to the village in around 2 hours.
We had a very relaxing couple of days in Gokyo; it’s a beautiful place to rest, and we were lucky to get good weather for the duration of our stay. Mark, Shyam and I took a side trip to the Fifth Lake, and were rewarded with amazing views of four 8000m peaks - Makalu, Cho Oyu, Lhotse and Everest. On the second day, we got up early to walk up to Gokyo Ri, from which we had equally stunning views. We left Gokyo for Dragnag, crossing over the Ngozumba Glacier on the way.
The next day, we crossed the Cho La pass into the Khumbu Valley. The general consensus is that the Cho La is harder than the Renjo La, however for me it was the opposite. Cho La is certainly steeper, but this means that you can treat it as more of a rock scramble, making it more enjoyable than merely plodding up; perhaps this (and that I was much healthier on the Cho La) was why I found it easier. Just after the pass, we crossed a newly formed, as-yet unnamed glacier, and then pushed on to Lobuche in the afternoon.
From Lobuche we walked to Gorak Shep in the morning. Now that we were on the main trekking route (straight from Lukla, up the Khumbu Valley to Base Camp, then straight back down), there were a lot more people on the trail. Lobuche to Gorak Shep took at least twice as long as it should have, purely due to the crowds. In the afternoon, we walked to Base Camp; for some reason, there weren’t many people around; perhaps most people walk to Base Camp in the morning or something.
The Khumbu Ice Fall has to be seen to be believed; I’m amazed that this is the easiest route up - it looks like an absolute death trap. We had a long day from Gorak Shep. It started with an early morning walk up Kala Pattar through a light covering of snow. It was a bit overcast, but the views of Pumori, Nuptse, Everest and Lhotse were still good. After breakfast we headed back to Base Camp, as Susan had been sick the previous day, and had stayed at the lodge. In the afternoon, we headed back down to Lobuche, walking through light snow the entire way. The snow continued for most of the night, so we did not have much hope that we would be attempting the Kongma La the next day.
Instead, we went down to Dingboche, and up the Chukhung Valley to the village of Chukhung. We spent a couple of days here, taking side trips to Island Peak Base Camp, and Chukhung Ri. Only 5 minutes from Island Peak Base Camp there are amazing views of the Imja Tse Glacier and Lake. It seems that not many people know this, as despite a reasonable crowd of trekkers, we had the view to ourselves for a good 20 minutes.
Mark and I had hoped to scramble up to Chukhung High Peak (~5830m), but the walk up to Chukhung Ri really took it out of us. It was strange - since my initial bout of nausea early on, I hadn’t felt the altitude at all, but both Mark and myself had to rest every 20-30 steps on the final section of the relatively easy climb up to Chukhung Ri.
The views from the top were probably my favourite of the whole trip. To the North lies the seemingly impenetrable South face of Nuptse; to the South the jagged spire of Ama Dablam, and glaciers in every valley we could see. From here it was downhill all the way. We made our way to Pangboche for the evening, descending below the tree line for the first time in 10 days. Then it was five hours back to Namche, and our final day of six hours down to Lukla.
This trip was totally worth it. It was not overly strenuous, but it was certainly not a walk in the park - we had a few 9-10 hour days involving over 1000 metres climbing; the popular Base Camp trek is, however, much easier than the route we took. The only gripe I had with the trip was the crowds - I was (perhaps naiively) surprised at the sheer number of people doing just what we were doing. This was only a problem though in a few sections, when our route intersected with the main trail.
